The Life Book of Captain Jim
by Emily-in-the-glass
Summary: What might Owen Ford's Great Canadian Novel have been like? R&R.
1. Owen Ford's Prologue

_This is a story my mother might have told me, if she had lived._

_My fingers graze the foolscap and inkstains, entranced and inquisitive. I spent my boyhood listening to her stories and collecting her memories. On summer nights too humid for sleep, I imagined the moaning of her ocean or the coolness of her sandshores beneath bare feet, piecing together in my mind the geography of Four Winds._

_Now I arrive, to walk through her dreams, long after she has gone. Feebly bound, his scrapbook leaves tear away at my eager tugging. _

_By lamplight and starlight I search the sentences for reminders of her. And so does he. Together, we people our stories with love lost_


	2. Book I FIRST PASSIONS: The Call 1

FIRST PASSIONS

The Call

1

The morning buzz at the Cove always stirs him from his sleep. The boy lies very still on his cot to catch the subdued singing. It is no use to peer out the square-paned windows of the Boyd farmhouse, for the fishing hamlet is five miles down the current, and hidden from view by a long, dipping headland. But he can imagine the twenty fishermen, each alighting his own skiff, nimbly raising white masts against the last darkness before daybreak. He thinks of their valiant daily vigil. When dawn seeps in his kitchen loft, he pictures sunrise flooding the channel flecked with golden sails, and silver nets tossing in snaking waters.

Occasionally during a remarkable catch, he has the remarkable chance to play gopher. Children scamper to shore with dinner pails from bustling housewives, to hand to older boys in skiffs, to relay to hungry fishermen. He is small and homely enough to lose himself in the frenzy, within the haphazard colony of weathered larch sheds as silver as the sea. Like other boys, he picks up the odd errands and pockets the grudging nickels. Unlike other boys, he is too shy and polite to play afterwards in the mud. He tries not to get any mud caked between his toes trekking down Cawnpore, but it is inevitable, and he seeks a solitary rock where the waves will wash his feet clean.

From his perch, which is not unlike an anchored vessel, he keeps surveillance for the boats' return. It is a long watch, for a summer afternoon lasts forever, and if it is fine the stars rise before it grows dark. If it is not, - well, he is unfamiliar with the agony of women's waiting. He would not be at the shore at all.

But since he is, it is a gorgeous evening when he bears witness to the amourous homecoming procession. The waters fill with dim silhouettes and the sonourous melody of male voices. They bellow their love songs in a lustier tenor than the morning's vagrant murmurings. The joy of their catch, or the passion of their defeat ring as tidings of themselves. Wives and sweethearts loiter on the beach, and the waves break gently at their hem. They praise God that the sea has returned their beloved.

He longs to be among the men: to hear their anecdotes bubbling over beer, or uttered to relieve the tedium of fish gutting and cleaning. But for the boy, the disappearance of the sun means that he must leave as quickly as he can for home.

He has lessons to con at the long kitchen table, long division which he works out on his slate until the chalk grinds down to a stub, and then he has very bald facts of Canadian history to memorize. He saves geography for last, tracing the maps and spelling the exotic place names with difficulty. Sybearia, Bangladesh, The Havaana. He marvels at the curves of the coastlines and wonders what scenery they enclose.

He goes through the primer, the first reader, the second, third, and almost stops at the fourth. As Jim grows older his farm chores loom larger, the minutes to study or to idle at the hamlet in Harbour Mouth diminishes to none. He still dips into his geography book maps like a diver craving deep water. He would tear them out and pin them on the sloping ceiling beams above his bed, but for his grandmother who was so thrifty as to be nicknamed "Mrs. Second Skimmings." She stows his school books in a battered blue trunk in the spare room, ostensibly for his progeny's benefit. Jim returns from the fields every evening in a cold sweat that his rare textbooks would pass onto the hands of ragged cousins. (Later, his unborn little sister Melissa would inherit his pencil-marked epics and maps, a legacy he gladly bequeathed.)

The Boyds have a diversified farm typical of the P. E. I. North Shore in the 19th century. Jim helps with the haying, the nightly milking, and takes whole months off school in the fall to pick apples. Anyway there isn't much school to attend. Until Jim turns twelve, the only school was at a nine miles off by Mowbray Narrows. He goes sometimes in the winter when it is not bitterly cold or when snowdrifts do not barricade the cross lots. The schoolmaster, likewise arbitrary, opens and dismisses the school for holidays on drunken whims.

His father, Joseph Boyd, could neither read nor write. He had a copy of King James' Bible, brought out from the Old Country, and could print his name in rounded childish letters. But he owned land stretching five hectares inland from the tip of the river to the bottom of the verdant green dale, hired two French hands, and harboured dreams of being landed gentility. One October he went to Charlottetown to sell grain. He returned in the windy yellow evening with volumes of dog-eared Royal Readers, which he had paid too much to a Jewish peddlar for, and determined that Jim would be a man of letters.

Jim wades through the poetry and the arithmetic. He finds it sticky, like walking in the red mud. Slow, uncomfortable, but globs of matter congeal on him, and stain his soles.

His whole life may never have happened if Confederation had not met in Charlottetown in 1867, spinning webs of national railway through Prince Edward Island like a restless spider. On the unnamed emerald green dale where he was born and had lived always, a tiny platform siding was erected, and a name granted to the rail station and town. With the christening of Glen St. Mary came the appointment of a schoolmaster for the village. Abner Elliot and Joe Boyd found themselves trustees, the Boyd barn furnished a vaulted classroom, and John Selwyn, schoolmaster, was installed as a boarder on Jim's farm, an inmate of Jim's intimate world and a gateway to wider vistas.

He does not know it then, as they hike along hills of sand, in the Englishman's eyes a seaward glance. Poetry trails from their lips like a sweet duet. Under John Selwyn's tutelage Jim's education advances swiftly, and he leads his small class the year he turns fifteen. Grandmother Boyd pats a neat pile in the bottom of her trunk, crop savings that could send him to college for a year in Halifax, or perhaps two in the new academy in Charlottetown, a mere two-days' journey by horse.

But  
_ By this still hearth, among these barren crags_  
he could barely sit still in his new "college trousers." The ocean fades in the horizon at East Point, and he thinks of stretching the margin, further and further beyond. To the other side of the sunrise, and back. But only to Halifax?

John Selwyn speaks of his sweetheart on a vessel on the Atlantic. They stroll among the wharves at Harbour Head, watching schooners arrive like migrant cities. John's gaze is wide and eager, but Jim narrowly eyes each ship with skepticism. He does not want the Royal William to come. He does not want the beguiling bride to step in and take over his best friend.

For all his sixteen years of landlocked existence, he manages to conjure a pageantry of watery dangers for the schoolmaster's betrothed. History, fiction and myth surface from his studies: the watery battle of Odysseus near Troy, the raid of Elizabeth I's navy for gold on the Spanish Armada, Frankenstein's lost expedition in the Arctic. Would he be sorry if some such appalling event betided the Royal William? He loses the schoolmaster more in the months of postponement and waiting than he ever dreamed.

The Royal William was due in Canada on July eighteenth. It had not come by July thirty-first. It had not come by on August fifteenth. In late August the skies were red and stormy, preventing John and Jim's ritual evening walks on the sand hills. They are afraid, anyhow, to watch the ocean for any ship's coming.

Jim steals away from the farm one halcyon blue day. The weather is perfect, so fine it is reminiscent of his childhood afternoons at Harbour Mouth. He stretches on a favourite red boulder as the day wanes.

Suddenly a black squall shakes the world. The white foam becomes ferocious waves. The sea transforms into a bed of peril, beaten more violently by the relentless rain. Someone hollers from behind.

- Look! Out there! Round East Point!

He can barely make out the shadow of a ship through the thickening rain.

- She is lost - she is lost - she will crash on the cliffs.

His friend's voice is as irrational as the wail of a drowning man, as disembodied as the wind.

- She cannot see, he answers peacefully. He knows his shore intimately. He can estimate the challenge of avoiding the rocks to beach the vessel on the sandy strip, in uncertain waters, in impaired vision.

- Who is on her? his hoarse shouting in order to be heard. The schoolmaster is unable to answer as he hands over the wet spyglass, and Jim squints to see. A figure or two, clinging to the bow of a sinking wreck. Another blast of thunder blackens his sight. Without hesitation, he motions for the man to jump, and on reaffirmation that the silhouette is no longer there, he throws off his new shirtsleeves and plunges into the backwater searching for the body of the exhausted captain.

Joseph Boyd kept a fishing dory but he strictly forbade his boy to learn to row. Jim made up for his father's paranoid dictum by excelling as a swimmer. The man clung to his robust young body as he towed him against the undercurrent. When he flung the burden at his schoolmaster's feet, the captain was barely conscious.

- Any others with you? John Selwyn demands in horror.

The man was foreign, and spoke only two words of english.

- We - _tout perdu_ - die!

His head motions down at the sea, his whiskers dripping.

The surviving captain finds asylum at the Boyds with their famous Island hospitality. They are grateful he is Belgian, indifferent that he is lately of the world's fastest clipper Columbus. His doom bears no relationship to the fate of the Royal William. Mrs. Joseph Boyd heaps fried bacon and eggs on his breakfast plate, and Grandmother Boyd grudgingly scrubs the spare room washbasin. Even Old Aunt Margaret Boyd mends her lost son's trousers for his use. Jim haunts the bedstead of first man he has saved like a loyal pup, learning to decipher fascinating stories through his broken english. Surprisingly, for the first time Joe Boyd does not have the heart to deny Jim this privilege.

Until he is forgotten the day the storm is spent, and the Royal William sails up the Four Winds channel in triumph. The shore is coloured by people. A joyous crowd. Families from throughout the Glen wave hankerchiefs unanimously. Mothers and fathers and sleepy schoolchildren who love the schoolmaster had prayed for his bride's arrival. Now as her ship labours up the channel, the cheering resounds across three districts.

Jim's own tears mingle with his exaltation when Persis Leigh steps off the gangplank. He wipes them off with his clean sleeve, ashamed. He has only a glimpse of her diminutive face and large, pure hazel eyes before she is caught in the arms of his schoolmaster.

At Jim's elbow, the Belgian captain weeps effusively. He laments the death of his vessel and crew, at the same time rejoicing for the Glen villagers he barely knew. Only Jim could guess how lonely he felt.

Later on, during the wedding festivities by candlelight, they draw aside to speak to the captain of the Royal William in the darkness. The Belgian bargains for a post on board. Jim sits by as interpreter, although it turns out there is no need for translation. The Royal William had struck a myriad foreign ports, so her captain was well versed in sign and gesture.

Then, Jim hesitates to make an impulsive request of his own.

Bearing his watery secret in his heart, afraid it will tip over and betray him, he runs lightheadedly back to watch Mistress Selwyn light the fire of her hearth.


	3. Book I FIRST PASSIONS: The Call 2

2

The Royal William docks one month at Four Winds to repair and restock She departs with two new crew members. Bloemje, the Belgian, and Captain Wooler stand side by side on the stern as the red shore retreats into a slender line. They salute the Selwyns, the Boyds, MacAllisters and Crawfords and Elliots, clutching satchels of kindness and friendship.

The other new member stays below deck. His luggage is heavier, not of the transient kind like the others' foodstuffs and ale. Foolishly he had packed with him clothing his mother intended for college: linen shirts with finely sewn collars, warm woolen socks, Aunt-Margaret-knit. Wisely he left behind weighty schoolbooks. He does not know who will discover them. He feels his father's heartbreak pulling back, even though he does not know how far they have sailed. Better for grandmother to sweep and find the cartons beneath his bed, scorning the unnecessary expenditure for ungrateful sons, who will never a scholar be!

The note he leaves on the schoolmaster's table. Penning it caused him great pain. He tries not to imagine the disapproval in his friend's eyes, or glimmering tears in Persis Selwyn's. But he has no choice, no other way to communicate.

When he comes out above there is a clear sky of stars and no shadow of headland in the darkness. He scans the ridges of the wave carefully, for any faint revelation of his island. He finds none. Runaways forfeit their right to say good-bye.

Then the foaming waves, on which the ship is cradled, rocks vigorously, and he almost loses balance, reeling back in nausea.

---

- Don't stay up top if you's seasick. An Irish sailor tosses advice to him, very lightly.

He hangs over the railing, lunging deep over his vomit and cobalt sea. The horizon is upside down. As swift as lighting Bloemje tugs his shoulders, guides him onto a planked bench. He fingers the uneven crevices of the harsh wood grain.

- I didn't know. I can swim - I've never felt anything like this.  
- Sea - malade - malady? Bloemje fumbled with his chin.  
- Seasickness. I've heard of it, didn't know what it was. I've never been on a boat in my life, never in waters this deep.  
- _N'inquiete_, Bloemje pats his hair, you will - ah - _habituate_ yourself. One day it be as easy as this - he pauses to exhale loudly - breat'ing.

Bloemje heaves rythmnic breaths, but Jim's panic accelerates. He had never noted the difference between survival in the water and on the water. When he sleeps, he dreams of being exposed and mocked by the crew for a shameless landlubber. Captain Wooler silently turning his back on the shiftless morsel who had clumsily inviegled his well-oiled floating establishment.

His torment hides in the must of the cabin. The long weeks it takes for him to gain balance when running from stern to bow on an errand, to raise a sail without tumbling under his momentum, were taken by his companions as a matter of course. The motley collection of strangers talk eagerly to and around him. Gradually, he begins to answer their questions.

- You got a sweetheart, lad?  
- No.  
- Y'hear that, mate? No sweetheart. No pale-eyed lass crying in soapwater for him. How many sweethearts you left on shore, mate?  
- Three in France, a blond in Norway, and a beautiful chinalady, his companion glibes spritely.  
- Those Canadian shore girls are right smart and strappin', someone chuckles from another quarter.  
- Strapping lasses - now those are the best kind. Look at Woolers wife there, she ain't afeared of no squall or sea.  
- The Sea is my woman, Bloemje says sedately, but the rowdier fellows do not catch his serious musing.  
- Now tell me - what sorta woman you like - we'll find you a sweetheart in a flash once we dock.  
- I don't know, Jim blushes and shifts his knees.  
- How about a blond one, hey?

At their prompting he shuts his eyes and conjures an image. It has soft brown hair and a delicate figure swaying gracefully on a wooden gangplank. Before he closes in on her hazel eyes, he nearly chokes in guilty recognition of the beauty of Persis Leigh.

He waits for the nausea to settle, as he does after being thrown off balance by a wave.

- Yea, there's a sort of girl I could love, he dreams of telling them. But she ain't mine for wooing.

The peace of the ocean seems to betray him. The sun beat on the deck - against its brilliance, the journey seemed already in vain.

There is his mate's frowning headshake.

- Most sailors got a sweetheart at every port. You've gotta have at least one. Who else you gonna name your ship after?


End file.
